In the last year, travel and Instagram have grown to go hand in hand. Seriously, how many photos did you post during your last trip?

Banking on our selfie and hashtagging obsessions, the new boutique 1888 Hotel in Sydney, Australia has made Instagram a key part of its visitors’ experience. The lobby features a digital mural of Instagram shots, the front desk has a map of top picture taking spots that you should be sure to put on your to-do list, it offers a free night’s stay to anyone with more than 10,000 Instagram followers and there’s a specific booth for taking selfies when you check in, ensuring that you can make your friends jealous immediately.

The photo-friendly theme makes sense; 1888 is not only a reference to the year that the building was constructed, but also when Kodak launched the first box and roll camera, the kind of thing you didn’t need a vintage filter for.

Welcome to Gadling, Craig! Tell us a little about the project and what attracts you to abandoned drive-ins.

You know how some people can remember many details about their childhood and teenage years and some people can only remember a few? I fall into the latter category. Even though I might not remember a great amount of the details of my childhood, I do have vivid memories of my earliest experiences at drive-in movie theaters. I remember the first movie my mom took my sister and me to at a drive-in. Can you say … “Supercalifragilisticexxpialidocious”? I remember the names of the guys I was with in my friend Mike’s trunk when we snuck into our local drive-in. Without question, I remember the details of the first girl I was “with” at a drive-in movie theater!

Today, approximately 90 percent of drive-ins are closed from their peak in the late 1950s. As a lover of architectural and landscape photography, drive-in movie theaters represent defining moments and passion for me. The distressed and decaying wood of a ticket booth, overgrown and unwieldy shrubs/trees where cars once parked, matched by the enormous scale of a screen tower all together scream as loudly to me today as if I was back in the day we laughed with joy upon successfully gaining entrance to the drive-in while sequestered in my buddy’s trunk.

Putting it simply – it’s the raw emotion, still present, from almost 50 years ago, that attracts me to abandoned drive-ins. A lot of people respond to the imagery of my Drive-in Project by referring to it as “haunting.” I’m good with that, as long as those same people’s definition of the word haunting includes “Mary Poppins” and getting busy.

%Slideshow-577%When you were doing this project, did you get to meet any folks who used to go to these drive-ins?

The people I met from Alabama to Arizona or from Nevada to New York were universally eager and open to sharing their personal experiences at drive-in movie theaters. People expressed a breadth of emotions when describing individual feelings they held in their memories about drive-ins they had visited.

Let me tell you about a couple of folks I met. I was shooting the Lake Estes Drive-in (Colorado), when I met the owners John and Sharon, in order to gain access to the projection booth. When we entered the projection booth, my eyes opened as wide as a kid being offered candy, as this was the first and only abandoned projector booth that I came across that still had a projector in it. It was dusty and needed a tune up to be sure, but it was a beautiful hunk of metal. All I could think about was what an organically perfect interior setting this was for my series. The rawness of the setting evoked such visceral emotions.

John and Sharon are planning to redevelop the land where the drive-in was located over 20 years earlier. They want a “good home” for the beautiful hunk of metal and offered me the projector. As of this interview, I haven’t figured out where I could house it. I’m still thinking about it, to the dismay of some in my family.

I came across something unique when I was researching drive-ins to shoot in Tennessee. Brothers Ed and John grew up going to the Moonglo Drive-in located in Pulaski. They own a dealership and loved going to the Moonglo when they were growing up. They loved it so much that as adults they bought the property and built their car dealership around the Moonglo’s projection booth and screen.

It was too good pass up for this project, no matter how far I had to drive to get there. Ed and John are great guys and thanks to them, I captured some wonderful images. While they’re concentrating on growing their dealership, I don’t believe it would take too much to get them to consider firing up the Moonglo as an operating drive-in movie theater.

Do you have any tips for budding photographers who want to take their own images of abandoned Americana?

Yes, I call it the three Ps – plan well, be patient as well as persistent. The Drive-in Project was shot over a four-year period in ten different states. Living in California, I traveled thousands of miles to shoot 80 percent of the drive-ins within the series. Each and every location deserved to have painstaking thought put into each image and that’s what they each received. If the lighting wasn’t right at the time I was there, I slept in the rental car, hoping the next morning would bring better light.

The three Ps came into play often during those four years, but nowhere more so than the drive-in located in Commerce, Georgia. Initially, I couldn’t even find it. So many years have passed that the drive-in is now engulfed by a full-blown forest that has hidden the remnants of the screen and ticket booth from the main road.

After finally locating the screen through the forest, I loaded up my equipment and began to hike out to setup my camera, a Mamiya RZ67. Suddenly, I felt this incredibly sharp pain in my right foot. I had stepped on a 4-inch nail that pierced my shoe and was now embedded in the ball of my foot. I said to myself, “I have come this far, I have to keep going and get the shot.”

I loosened my shoe and pulled the nail out, hiking further into the forest to a clearing where the small remaining piece of the screen was visible. As I’m setting my tripod up, I heard this rustling and am joined by two Georgia State Troopers. The troopers informed me that I was trespassing on private property, but I’d done my research and I knew the name and contact info of the property owner who had given me permission to shoot there. The troopers ended up being nice guys and were quite interested in my project. They left me to do my work and just as I was feeling good about covering the three Ps until one of the troopers, as they were walking away, said, “Watch out for snakes around here!”

What’s next for you?

I’ve started a project that involves a 1950s “Normandie Starline Mod 1″ beauty parlor chair, which I have named Marilyn. Marilyn has a beautiful chrome dryer top with a pink chair with an ashtray in the left arm and a swing handle that lifts the leg rest. Marilyn will be photographed in various environments juxtaposed against outdoor landscapes, models inside my studio and street scenes.

The name of my new project is: “Road Trip With Marilyn (RTWM).” Although I am only about 20 percent into my RTWM project, I have found that Marilyn helps me in a couple of ways as a photographer. Marilyn is a great icebreaker; her physical appearance attracts and pulls people into the space she is placed in. People are anxious to play with her and pose with her chrome dryer top. I’m excited about hitting the road with Marilyn and capturing an eclectic series of photographs. Maybe we can hook up with you, Sean, while you’re on one of your upcoming adventures?

You, me, and Marilyn in the Sudan! That would make for some interesting photos. Thanks for joining us today!

Over dinner recently, a fellow Gadling blogger, some other travel lovers and I were discussing the merits of San Francisco. We decided that our favorite part about it was that it just has that special amount of “funk” that is hard to find in other cities. It’s hard to describe, but if you have been to San Francisco, you know what I am talking about.

That feeling is perfectly captured in this photo of colorful and slightly seedy signs on a main drag in the city of hills and streetcars. It’s busy, and you get the feeling that behind every sign is a story. Makes me want to go and spend a sunny day exploring.

It’s not easy to frame a scene perfectly for a photograph, especially at a popular spot full of tourists. But Flickr user Kumakulanui did it twice for today’s Photo of the Day. Taken at Paris‘ famed Louvre museum, he captures both the larger scene of people and architecture, as well as the close-up his travel companion is shooting on her camera. The result is a very clever double take, giving you two images for the price of one.

The Gadling crew is one of the most diverse groups of travelers on the web. But different as we are, we’re united in our thirst for adventure and our hunger for the open road. You read about our adventures here. Now, we’d like to invite you to travel with us in real-time – on Instagram at @GadlingTravel.

Each month, a member of our team will take over the @GadlingTravel Instagram feed for one week and post images from his or her travels with the hashtag #ontheroad. This week, I’m posting photos from my current trip to sunny Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s one of the most artistic and culturally vibrant places on the planet; I’m excited to be your eyes and ears while here.

We’re also excited to open up Instagram as a platform for submitting original mobile photos into the running for Gadling’s Photo of the Day. Just mention @GadlingTravel AND use hashtag #gadling in your image post, and we’ll consider it along with photos submitted in our Gadling Pool on Flickr.